


The Dreaming

by churb



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Esteem Issues, ish???, sort of, this is not a happy fic lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:39:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churb/pseuds/churb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sister fic to The Fear.</p><p>Space is cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> i can't justify this

Space is cold.

Space is very cold, in fact. Space is sweater weather. And space is very, very lonely. Space is not the place (rhyme untintended but kind of amusing) that he wants to be right now.

He tries.

He does try, he thinks, he tries very, very hard. Keeping people happy is difficult but that's what he does best, that's not for lack of trying, because he does try and mostly, he succeeds.

He tries a lot. He tries not to be selfish, or disagreeable, or annoying. He knows in reality he doesn't have much worth in the universe. He's not a hero. He doesn't do great things. He's just sort of. There.

It's depressing, but helping people is sort of how he makes up for it.

He helps people for that reason, because he's useless in reality, because he's childish and selfish and never thinks, and if anyone has something to make up for it's him. And it helps him forget these things. It makes him, temporarily, feel good about himself.

God. Even when it's about other people, he has to find a way to make it about himself. Whoever just said he was selfish wasn't wrong.

Oh, wait. Haha. That was him.

So he sits in his bubble and gazes off into the rest of space because there was someone else in that bubble ten minutes ago and he wants her back.

He's so, so stupid.

She never said that, but she was thinking it, probably. She said a whole load of other things. She called him childish. She called him selfish. She said he was a jerk, she said she was sick of him.

She said it was over.

She can't do this any more, she can't stand the way he acts, and then he ended up floating along in the middle of space and he's not quite sure what he did wrong but it must have been something. There are tears streaming down his face and he can't stop it, which is, he supposes, another slight against his person. He's far too emotional. How he got this far in life is beyond him.

Whatever he did to upset her, he didn't mean to. He just sort of forgets she's not on board with him sometimes. Mostly it feels like they're the same person, that's how in tune they

were.

...Were.

And he blew it. Great job, hero. Nice job breaking it. He shifts around in the little bubble that reformed after she split off her own and tries to convince himself that she's coming back. She has to. He has the orbal juice. She'll die out there.

That'll be his fault.

His hands are shaking now, he moves one over his mouth and stares at the same spot he was just staring at all over again and lets out a sob, god, he's so stupid and how did she put up with him this long? He just needs to find somewhere to be, somewhere where he's not going to inconvinience anyone or anything. Where he can just sort of...

...survive, he guesses.

He doesn't know what to do now. He doesn't see the point any more. Beam me up, Hater. Because he's somehow managed to hurt the only person he has to the point where she doesn't care about him any more and he's not sure what he has left now apart from a dumb hat and several unappealing psychological issues.

He's not a hero. If anything, he's a wreck.

?

There should not be hands in space.

But there are, apparently, this world couldn't get any more crapsack, so Wander's natural reaction to this sudden premiere of Space Hands: The Hauntening is to shake his head and keep it buried in his knees and keep sobbing because freaking out is apparently the only thing he's good at.

The hands persist. They're settled on his shoulders and speaking. Do hands speak? Fuck knows.

"--just tell me what's wrong. Do you feel sick? Dizzy? There's not a doctor on this planet, god, should we move? Can you move? Talk to me--"

It's familiar enough for him to look up, and everything's blurry but the floating hands of fairly certain doom (because hands don't do that, Wander, basic physics) rectify this situation and gently wipe his face off.

"There we go. Hi there."

Oh.

It takes a moment for him to register this, and he looks about himself and notices he's sat up halfway inside his hat, and he sees a basically empty land, trees and water and things, and it seems like the sort of planet they like to crash on so he hopes that's what happened and whatever he thought just happened didn't do the happen thing. Where it happened.

Yeah.

"....Are you going to tell me what's wrong now?"

Wander blinks up at his recently departed friend and wonders why she's here for a moment before remembering the previous happenings and their lack of doing the happen thing. This prompts a shrug, because in all honesty he's not sure how else to react. He can't tell her. That would be over dramatic, self absorbed, and it would make her very uncomfortable and pressure her into staying with him.

"Wander."

"......uh huh?"

"What's up."

She says it gently, but it's a little forceful, in a sort of trying to help ish kind of way, but he doesn't want to think about that right now because the topic of helping isn't helping his mental trainwreck of loathing.

If ever there was a run on sentence, that was it.

FInally, he responds with a "Sorry."

"I--For what? You haven't done anything wrong!"

Fidget. Shrug. "I don't know. I just don't feel very good right now." Does that work?

Apparently it does, because this gets an arm around him.

"...Look. I don't know what's going on in your head, but if it helps? I'm not mad at you. There isn't anything to be mad at you over."

He can think of quite the assortment of things but again he doesn't say that. Hashtag, optimism.

"And no-one else is mad at you either, okay. You didn't do anything wrong." Oh, it's a hug now. "Maybe you're just tired. Today was crazy. Well, Yesterday. I think it's yesterday by now."

"Okay." And he doesn't know what else to say, and saying anything else would be difficult because he's smooshed against her shoulder. This is not a good speaking position. Where are his arms.

"So just....get some sleep, okay? We can talk some more tomorrow. Later. Whatever time it is." This prompts some sort of half laugh. "But it's fine. You're fine. Okay?"

He nods because that's all he can do, and when she smiles at him in a vaguely patronising sort of way he smiles back and he can't say he feels as bad as he did two minutes ago. Maybe the trying's paying off.

(He's not a hero, but maybe he can be the vaguely amusing friend of the hero who boosts the morale a bit. That works. He's not unhappy with that.)

(As long as someone needs him.)


End file.
